It was a year of green ogres, super heroes, and controversial hits from
outside of the Hollywood mainstream which made 2004 a memorable dozen months
at the North American box office. While total ticket sales inched out a
miniscule gain over the previous year, admissions once again slipped with
the industry giving its annual thanks to higher ticket prices. In a year
that saw the birth of the 4,000-theater opening, Sony Pictures made off
with the market share crown for the second time in three years.

Total grosses for the year amounted to $9.21 billion covering the box
office year of January 5, 2004 to January 2, 2005, according to Nielsen
EDI. Up less than one percent from 2003 in dollars, total admissions slipped
nearly 3% to 1.48 billion tickets sold. Wealth was gobbled up by fewer
players as 22 releases have crossed or will soon reach the $100M mark compared
to the 30 from 2003. But the heavy hitters got stronger. Three films -
Shrek 2, Spider-Man
2, and The Passion of the Christ
- released within five months of each other, broke through the $350M level.
That's as much as the previous six years combined. Could a summer of two
$400M pictures be too distant in our future?

Controversy became the newest marketing tool in the business. Both The
Passion of the Christ and Fahrenheit
9/11 attracted plenty of media attention for their subject matter
and national debates helped drive millions to the multiplexes to see what
the fuss was all about. Computer animation was as hot as ever with sensational
turnouts for the Shrek sequel, The
Incredibles, The Polar Express,
and Shark Tale which together accounted
for over $1 billion of the year's total. Franchises were still king as
the top five sequels of the year, including current chart-topper Meet
the Fockers, should go on to gross an eye-popping $1.5 billion
in ticket sales. That's nearly 17% of all business during the year going
to only five films. The election year also saw America spending heavily
on films the whole family could enjoy. While 2003's top ten boasted four
R-rated films, last year's only included one and it was a film about Jesus.

Regaining the box office crown it won in 2002, Sony Pictures led the
motion picture industry in 2004 with a stunning $1.31 billion in ticket
sales, rising 8% from the previous year. Once again it was the webslinger
who drove the release slate to victory in market share as Spider-Man
2 exploded at the summer box office with $373.4M finishing the
year as the second-biggest blockbuster. Spider-Man's
$403.7M allowed Sony to claim victory in 2002. But the studio also succeeded
at targeting teens and young adults with movies that did not break the
bank in terms of costs. The Grudge
and The Forgotten provided the scares,
White Chicks and 50
First Dates kicked in star-driven laughs, and Christmas
with the Kranks offered a bit of holiday cheer. Underperformers
like Baby Geniuses 2, Breakin'
All the Rules, and Little Black Book
didn't hurt at all so the studio coasted into 2005 in good shape.

Warner Bros., the only studio to boast four $100M titles in 2004, claimed
second place for the year with $1.22 billion in grosses inching up 5% from
a Matrix-fueled 2003. The company led
all distributors with 19 new wide releases including a wide variety of
hits and misses. Warners tested the summer waters with its star franchise
by releasing Harry Potter and the Prisoner of
Azkaban in the first week of June. But despite earning the best
reviews and the largest opening weekend for the series, the boy wizard
pic still ended with domestic and worldwide tallies below the previous
Potter films. The fourth is on tap
for November of this year. Brad Pitt's Troy
made up for its somewhat disappointing domestic haul of $133.2M gross with
a muscular run overseas leading to a global gross of $500M. Solid numbers
also came from spring titles Starsky & Hutch
and Scooby Doo 2 as well as holiday
hits The Polar Express and Ocean's
Twelve. But a big black eye came from the megabudgeted Colin
Farrell epic Alexander which limped
to just $34M stateside. But Warner Bros. could shed the bad press with
the awards contender Million Dollar Baby
from studio staple Clint Eastwood.

For Buena Vista, which placed third with $1.16 billion, 2004 was all
about the second half. Down 24% from its Nemo-Pirates
led domination of 2003, the Mouse House stumbled in the first half of the
year with expensive misfires like The Alamo
and Around the World in 80 Days and
could not catch a break with the early July historical epic King
Arthur. Together, the trio couldn't even break $100M in combined
domestic grosses. But Disney's fortunes changed with The
Village and Princess Diaries 2
which ended the summer on a high note leading to November when The
Incredibles and National Treasure
joined forces to give the studio five straight weeks at number one.

DreamWorks went cartoon crazy in 2004 and wound up with a record year
collecting a whopping $926M from only nine wide releases. Almost quadrupling
its total take in 2003, the studio claimed the year's biggest blockbuster
with Shrek 2 which accounted for nearly
half of all sales. Add in the company's runnerup title Shark
Tale and nearly two-thirds of DreamWorks' grosses came from
animated films. On-screen humans like Tom Cruise, Will Ferrell, and Tom
Hanks added assists with Collateral,
Anchorman, and the underperforming
The Terminal.

Relying once again on franchise pictures to carry it forward, Universal
ended the year in fifth place with $906M, off 17% from a year earlier.
The studio kicked off the summer movie season with Van
Helsing which performed a bit below expectations, struck out
with the Vin Diesel sequel The Chronicles of Riddick,
and then bounced back with a stellar turnout for The
Bourne Supremacy. But the big gun was held until Christmas when
Meet the Fockers dominated the holiday
box office with a domestic gross on course to top $250M. Horror remake
Dawn of the Dead was a bright spot
with $58.9M as was the biopic Ray which
has surpassed $70M and is giving the studio Academy buzz.

Holding steady close behind in sixth place was Fox with $904M, up 13%
from 2003, led by its trio of summer hits The
Day After Tomorrow, I, Robot,
and Dodgeball. Paramount suffered another
sluggish year grossing only $625M which was off 4% from a dismal 2003.
Late year fireworks came from the long-titled kidpics The
SpongeBob SquarePants Movie and Lemony
Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. The latter film became
the studio's first release to cross $100M in a year and a half and looks
to become the first to break $120M since the summer of 2001.

Thanks to The Passion of the Christ,
NewMarket Films placed eighth overall with $407M with the Mel Gibson hit
accounting for 91% of the distributor's sales for the year. With no new
Lord of the Rings film to provide an
end-of-year surge, New Line slumped 58% and finished in ninth place with
$388M. The studio known for horror, sci-fi, and action hits saw its biggest
hit come from the tearjerking romance The Notebook
which happened to be the distributor's only title to cross $60M. Rounding
out the top ten was Miramax which also had an off year dropping 46% to
$378M. The company's top-grossing film was Kill
Bill Vol. 2 with $66.2M although current Oscar contender The
Aviator is expected to eventually soar above that level.

The table below wraps up the year in the lives of Hollywood's studios
and distributors. Annual grosses cover the box office year of January 5,
2004 - January 2, 2005 (the Monday after New Year's weekend 2004 until
the end of New Year's weekend 2005).